[PR] 当サイトはアフィリエイト広告による収益を得ています。
独学をテーマにブログを書いているイッキュウです。 主に読書、自己啓発、英語に力を入れていて、このブログでは英語を学びながら、自己啓発にもなる学習ツールを提案します。
ここでは「As a Man Thinketh」を紹介します。原文(1903年)は古典英語でわかりにくいので、チャットGPTなどを利用して現代の米国英語で編集しました。構成は以下の通りです。
現代英語(原文・重要単語を添付)
↓
和訳の要約(自己啓発的な意義)
これは全10回その2です。
Effect of Thought on Circumstances_1 (Modernized Version)

① A man’s mind is like a garden. It can be taken care of in a smart way, or it can be left alone to grow without control. But either way, it will grow something. If good seeds are not planted, then many useless weeds will grow instead and keep spreading.
② Just like a gardener takes care of his garden by removing weeds and growing the flowers and fruits he wants, a person can take care of their mind. They can remove bad, useless, and negative thoughts and grow good, helpful, and positive ones. By doing this, a person will eventually realize that they are in control of their own mind and life. They will also start to understand how their thoughts shape their personality, their life situations, and their future.
③ Thoughts and character are closely connected. A person’s character can only show and grow through their surroundings and life situations. This means that the outside world is always connected to their inner thoughts. However, this doesn’t mean that someone’s current situation shows everything about their character. It just means that their situation is closely linked to some important thoughts inside them, and for now, it is necessary for their personal growth.
④ Every person is where they are because of their own thoughts and choices. The thoughts they have put into their character have led them to their current situation. There is no such thing as luck in how life is arranged—everything happens because of a rule that never makes mistakes. This is true for both people who feel uncomfortable in their environment and those who are happy with it.
⑤ People are always growing and improving. They are in their current situation to learn and become better. Once they learn the important lessons from their situation, it will go away and be replaced by new experiences.
⑥ A person is controlled by their life situations as long as they believe that outside things decide everything. But when they understand that they have the power to shape their own life and control the thoughts and feelings that create their situations, they become the true master of their life.
⑦ Everyone who has practiced self-control and tried to improve themselves for a long time knows that their thoughts create their life situations. They have seen that when their way of thinking changes, their life also changes in the same way. This is so true that when someone works hard to fix their weaknesses and makes quick and clear progress, they go through many life changes one after another.
⑧ A person’s soul attracts what it secretly thinks about—both what it loves and what it fears. It reaches the goals it truly cares about, but it also falls to the level of its uncontrolled desires. Life situations help the soul get what it deserves.

原文は詩的で美しい。やや難解ですが次に紹介します。
EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES_1
①MAN’S mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.
②Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.
③Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man’s circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought-element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.
④Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err. This is just as true of those who feel “out of harmony” with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them.
⑤As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.
⑥Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.
⑦That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for any length of time practised self-control and self-purification, for he will have noticed that the alteration in his circumstances has been in exact ratio with his altered mental condition. So true is this that when a man earnestly applies himself to remedy the defects in his character, and makes swift and marked progress, he passes rapidly through a succession of vicissitudes.
⑧The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires,—and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.
run wild:野放しになる、制御されずに成長する plot:土地、区画 tend:世話をする、手入れをする pursue:進める、取り組む accuracy:正確さ、精度 manifest and discover:表れると気づく harmoniously:調和して、うまく一致して at any given time:どの時点でも、その時々の indication:兆し、しるしintimately:深く密接に indispensable:欠かせない、必要不可欠な surroundings:環境、周囲の状況 contented:満足している buffeted:振り回される、翻弄される so long as:〜する限り command:支配する、コントロールする progressive and evolving being:成長し続ける存在 passes away and gives place:消えて新しいものに変わる out of:~から生じる length:期間、時間の長さ purification:浄化、清め alteration:変化、変更exact:正確な、ぴったりの altered:変わった、修正された earnestly:真剣に、熱心に remedy:改善する、直す defects:欠点、欠陥 rapidly:急速に、素早く succession:連続、次々に起こること vicissitudes:変化、浮き沈み attract:引き寄せる harbour:心に抱く、秘める cherish:大切にする、心に抱く aspiration:願望、目標 unchastened:抑えられていない、制御されていない
要約と意義

人の心は庭のようなもの
もし良い種を蒔けば、豊かな花や実が実ります。
にしかし、心をそのままにしておけば、雑草が生えてきて、収集がつかなくなります。もし心を大切に手入れをしていけば、そのルール気づき、人生を導くことができるようになります。
思考はすべての始まり
心の状態が変わればそれに応じて周りの状況も変わります。
そして、試練は、成長するための大切な一歩です。心が変われば、外の世界も変わり、自己改善に取り組む人は、必ずその努力に見合った道を歩んでいくことができるのです。
魂は心の中で抱く想いを引き寄せる
愛するものも、恐れるものも、その思いから生まれます。思いは力となり、理想へと導いてくれますが、欲望に流されてしまうこともあります。
そして、すべての出来事は、魂が成長し、真の自分を知るために必要な試練として訪れるのです。
まとめ
本ブログのポイントは、原文を読みやすい現代英語でリライトした英訳版です。

これをしっかり読み込めば自己啓発の根本である「思考は現実化する」「人は考えた通りの人になる」が理解できるようになります。
その3に続きます。
コメント